More than four months before voters handed Republicans control of the House of Representatives, top White House and Department of Homeland Security officials were crammed into the Roosevelt Room to prepare for just that scenario.
The department and its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, had emerged as prime targets of Republican anger over the Biden administration’s border security policies — anger that is sure to spark aggressive congressional investigations with Republicans projected to narrowly contest the majority. Parliament and the subpoena power that accompanies it.
Seated around the large conference table in the Roosevelt Room, White House lawyers quizzed senior DHS officials on their preparations for the broad Republican oversight they had come to expect, including the Republicans’ stated plans to impeach Mayorkas, they said two sources familiar with the meeting. .
Convened by Richard Sauber, a veteran attorney hired in May to oversee the administration’s response to congressional oversight, the meeting was one of several the White House has held since the summer with lawyers from across the administration — including Ministry of Defense, Ministry of State and Ministry of Justice.
The point, people familiar with the effort said, was to ensure the agencies are ready for the coming investigative onslaught and coordinate an administration-wide approach.
While President Joe Biden and Democrats campaigned to keep their majorities in Congress, a small group of lawyers, strategic communications and legislative experts spent the past few months in Washington preparing the alternative, two administration officials said.
The preparations, largely run out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, are among the first and most comprehensive by any administration ahead of the midterm elections and underscore how far-reaching and aggressive the Republican probes are expected to be.
Along with Sauber, this spring the White House hired veteran Democratic communications aide Ian Sams as a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office. Biden’s top adviser, Anita Dunn, returned to the White House in the spring, in part to oversee the administration’s preparations for a GOP-controlled Congress.
The Justice Department is also preparing for investigations, bringing in well-known government transparency lawyer Austin Evers to help respond to legislative oversight. Evers is the founder of the group American Oversight and served as its executive director until this year, having previously handled the oversight response at the State Department.
The White House is preparing to hire additional lawyers and other staff to bolster its oversight team in the next two months before the new Congress convenes in January, administration officials said. The hires will bolster Sauber’s current team of about 10 lawyers, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
Combining the GOP’s goals and strategy, the group paid close attention to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, the two Republicans likely to lead many of the investigations under a Republican-controlled House and they have spent months telegraphing their intentions in television interviews and supervisory letters.
Their album debut will be Thursday, when Comer and Jordan will host a joint press conference to preview the various investigations into President Joe Biden’s family.
Although the Republican majority is poised to be much slimmer than expected — with a possible margin of just two seats — all indications are that House Republicans are poised to move forward with a wide-ranging probe into all corners of the Biden administration, including messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Covid-19 vaccine mandates, and the Justice Department’s handling of various investigations related to Donald Trump.
Republicans also plan to investigate the president’s family, particularly his son, Hunter Biden.
With little chance of passing much legislation in a gridlocked Congress, the investigations are shaping up to be the focus of how a Republican House majority exercises its power.
“You’re going to have a bunch of presidents who are completely on their own, who are going to do whatever the hell they want without considering the national political implications,” said Brendan Buck, a former top adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said he believes that GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy will have “very little leash” to rein in those investigative pursuits.
House Republicans have already sent more than 500 letters to the administration asking them to preserve documents, key committees have hired new legal counsel to help with investigations, and leadership has hosted classes for staff on how to best use the oversight tools they have. at their service.
Meanwhile, McCarthy’s office has been working with potential committee chairs for the past several months to authorize who will investigate what, according to a source familiar with the matter.
“It’s like a clearinghouse,” the source said.
But the GOP’s push for aggressive investigations could face resistance from the GOP’s moderate wing, which wants to use its newfound majority to tackle key legislative priorities — not just bash Hunter Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci. While McCarthy has pledged to exercise strict oversight, he will have to strike a delicate balance between the demands of competing factions in his party.
White House officials believe Republicans are confident they will overreach and that their investigative overreach will backfire on the American public. Meanwhile, they are ready to push back strongly, believing that many proposed investigations are based on conspiracy theories and politically motivated accusations.
“President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on the priorities of the American people, and we hope that congressional Republicans will join us in confronting them instead of wasting time and resources on political vendetta,” said Shams, a White House spokesman. the attorney’s office, said in a statement to CNN.
The expected thin House majority is likely to make it more difficult to take steps like impeaching members of Biden’s cabinet — or even the president himself. But that doesn’t mean, sources told CNN, that they won’t try, especially when it comes to the border and Mayorkas.
On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee gave a preview of what’s to come. During a marathon four-hour hearing, Republican lawmakers criticized Mayorka over the influx of immigrants at the southern border, the number of people evading Border Patrol apprehension and border encounters with people on the terrorist watch list.
Throughout, Mayorkas stood his ground, arguing that the border is “secure” and criticizing it as “open,” as Republicans have claimed.
At one point, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana heralded more testimony next year, telling Mallorca: “We look forward to seeing you in January.”
Mayorkas, officials said, remains undeterred by impeachment threats and intends to remain at the helm of the department, a point he reiterated Tuesday. However, a person close to Mayorkas told CNN that the DHS chief is “nervous” about the looming GOP investigations and the possibility of being constantly hauled before Congress by hostile Republican committee chairs.
“Don’t let the bastards win,” said a US official familiar with Mayorkas’ thinking when asked to summarize the DHS chief’s stance on possible GOP border investigations and impeachment.
“We will respond to legitimate inquiries,” the official said. “We’re not going to fuel what might end up as kabuki theater.”
DHS already responds to hundreds of congressional inquiries each month, according to a Homeland Security official, who added that the department has been preparing for months for any potential increase in congressional activity. The department is also prepared to “respond aggressively to attempts to misrepresent the strong background” of the DHS workforce, as well as “politically motivated attempts to attack the secretary,” the official said.
DHS officials considered hiring outside legal counsel to prepare for the potential onslaught of Republican scrutiny, but ultimately chose not to, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Ricki Seidman, a senior adviser to Mayorkas and a former senior Justice Department official, has been involved in preparing DHS for GOP oversight, the source added.
Another Homeland Security official said the Border Patrol along with Customs and Border Protection “will take the most heat.”
The most politically charged investigations next year are expected to be those of the president’s son Hunter Biden.
Top Republicans were largely happy for Comer to take the lead role in the Hunter Biden investigation, multiple sources said. Jordan doesn’t plan to get closely involved in the Hunter Biden investigation, but…
